It’s the holiday
season – but today I’m feeling a little sad.

Weather
permitting, Thursday, Dec. 17 is the day Sanderson Hall, a dormitory, built in
1969 at West Chester University and named for Chadds Ford resident and
historian Christian C. Sanderson, is slated for demolition as part of a $300
million project that would replace eight dormitories built in the ’60s and ’70s
with six new residence halls.

Sanderson
graduated from, then, West Chester Normal School, class of ’01…that’s 1901.

When Sanderson
was a student, he lived in Old Main. The magnificent serpentine Victorian was
then only 26 years-old and the principle building at West Chester Normal.

Seventy years
later, my roomy Nancy and I moved into Old Main in our freshman year. By that
time, the stately old girl of High Street was 96 years old. The common areas
and classrooms were on the first floor and the dorm rooms on the upper floors.

It was a good
place to live our first year away from home. The rooms had large windows going
up to the ceiling. We even had tiny individual clothes closets. You could move
the matching twin beds and old dressers anywhere you wanted. And there was an
old table in the middle of the room for studying.

Yes, the building
was old and the “community” bathroom at the end of one hall had antiquated
plumbing, but it had great character and warmth.

Of course when
we had fire drills at 2 a.m., the fire marshal always said because of the
building’s age, the girls in the top floors would never get out.

The next year,
Nancy and I were lucky enough to pull a room in Ramsey Hall. It was exciting
and state of the art. We were only the third year of girls to live there.
Everything was bright, shiny and new.

The walls were
cinderblock with basic boxy armoires, dressers, desks and shelves, built into
the sides of the rooms. But with our cheery bedspreads, favorite stuffed
animals (yes guys, college girls have stuffed animals), green throw rug,
curtains and posters, it seemed more like home again and we loved it.

My next year in
Goshen Hall, in its fourth year, was the same way.

During my senior
year, Old Main, at age 100, was torn down. It hurt to see the elegant
serpentine go, only to be replaced with a classroom building called New Main
that looked like… well… a concrete box.

Two professors
preserved the beautiful entranceway to Old Main which now graces an entrance to
the new Quad, just south of its original position. 

As you may have
noticed I have not mentioned Sanderson Hall yet. It was not completed until my
junior year...40 years ago.

And now it’s
considered out-dated and is being torn down.

The students at
West Chester U. call it “Sanderslum.”

Ouch – that
really hurts!

But here’s a
point to ponder…who turned it into a slum anyway. Hmmm?

And why is it
that Nancy and I and a lot of other good people, including my sister two years
later, could live in a 96 year old building and love and respect every inch of
it?

Progress?

I guess like Old
Main I’m showing my age, so I’ll just go sit in my Boston rocker and sip some
tea.